"Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees" Coming in March ‘09

What’s a diehard Yankee fan to do when her team languishes in last place in the AL East, with a record of 21-29 in late May of 2007? To me, the Yankees represented winning and excellence and always making the playoffs. They were my fantasy men, my addiction, my escape - until their miserable first half of the ‘07 season when they were no longer holding up their part of the bargain. I felt betrayed, angry, depressed. I became such a pain to be around that my husband couldn’t stand watching a game with me. My team was in trouble and my marriage was in trouble, and there was only one solution: divorce!

After an especially galling loss to the Mets, I wrote an article announcing that I was breaking up with the Yankees. The grounds? Mental cruelty.

The "divorce article" ran in The New York Times’ sports section and created an uproar, getting picked up by blogs and sports talk radio shows. Irate Yankee fans branded me a traitor, a sore loser, a bandwagon fan, and their hostile reaction stunned and infuriated me. Give me a break! I wasn’t a bandwagon fan! I was the best fan ever!

Determined to prove my true fandom, I wrote a proposal for a book. I promised the publisher I would hop on a plane after the All-Star break and follow the Yankees to every game, at home and away, for the rest of the season. I boasted that as their biggest fan I would gain access to the players and get them to tell me all their juicy secrets. I said I would learn life lessons and write about them in a first person diary - just like Bridget Jones. I got the book deal. My husband and I decided he would come with me on the trip. What could be better, right? I would meet Yankees and rejuvenate my marriage at the same time.

Little did I know that the journey would be nothing like I imagined - from the Yankees’ amazing comeback to my attempts to interview a Yankee (the front office would not cooperate with me on the book) to the discovery that marriage, like baseball, demands patience, hard work and a deep and abiding faith.

Confessions of a She-Fan chronicles the 2007 season, but it’s also a memoir about how my innocent childhood belief in the Yankees morphed into a grown woman’s obsession with winning.

Did I ever get my interview with a Yankee? Did my husband and I make it through the trip together? Which ballpark had the best hot dog?

All will be revealed when Confessions of a She-Fan is published by Rodale/Modern Times in March ‘09, to coincide with the opening of the new Yankee Stadium. In the meantime, feel free to click on the links to the right and read my articles that have run in The New York Times since the infamous divorce story. Hopefully, they’ll give you a laugh - whether you’re a Yankee fan or just a fan of my novels.



Best wishes,

Jane Heller